Don't forget, Donny Beaver's earlier business was a Kill-for-Cash game farm where deer and exotic animals were stocked in a fenced-in area and shot by all those "sportsmen" with enough cash to pay for their "trophy". With Spring Ridge (now "Homewaters"), DB just added water and fish to the equation..........IMHO.

Did the bullet still have to hit the beast? Are all those preserve-game hunters poor shots? I have no problem people not wanting to fish artificially enhanced fisheries, but let's not kid ourselves how often some of us do. I have a lot of reasons to be jealous of, angry at, and ashamed of our super-wealthy, but disputing their fishing prowess isn't on my agenda. Nor do I think it is a winning argument if the truth be known.

If money were no object, I would probably not join an exclusive club like Home Waters. But, I may pay for private access through a guide for instance on some of the great waters in the US that do not need to be enhanced to provide a wonderful fishing experience.

I would bet that during Little J hatches, some of those alleged pellet hogs rise to the surface to take a #12 cahill and I wouldn't mind being someone's guest on these private stretches or even just wading up in the water to catch a few. Lefty or Ed, is you're listening and looking for a partner for your next scheduled visit give me a ring [*** holds hand with pinky and thumb extended near right-hand side of face***].

Posted on: 2011/1/10 9:26

_________________Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

I agree. If they are as successful and talented as their ability to pay implies, they should want to be informed so as not to be duped. Opprobrium is warranted. odtfish's vignette is evidence that what his neighbor thought he was getting in pay-to-play was phony. Learning this may have been embarrassing, but a good lesson nevertheless.

Even after a few years of forum discussion of this topic, I was not aware of some of the "setups" afishinado mentioned in posts 30 and 31. Pay-to-play there is even worse than I thought.

Donny put some of those big rainbows in Elk at Coburn the first year he bought the house there. People caught them as far down as Poe Paddy. I haven't heard of him putting in any since. I don't think they stayed in place.

Did the bullet still have to hit the beast? Are all those preserve-game hunters poor shots?

Being a good shot is a small part of being a good hunter. Not to say it doesn't help, but its only one of many things that have to come together to be successful. Knowing where and when, maintaining proper concentration, proper approach to likely spots to put yourself in good position, etc. If you're taking a reasonably makable shot, 95% of the job is done and done well, but that shot can still make or break the hunt.

It's much the same as fishing. It'd be like saying that a good caster is a good fisherman. It certainly is a part of the game and contributes to being a good fishermen. But a good caster who's bad at everything else is still a bad fisherman, and a bad caster who is good at everything else can be fairly successful.

So do you think that good fly anglers would not catch more and bigger fish on the pellethead populated private waters than poor fly anglers would? Do you think that such good fly anglers would be out of their league on non-pellethead-stocked waters? Some assume the latter and I think it is a ridiculous and perverse assumption.

Posted on: 2011/1/11 15:04

_________________Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

So do you think that good fly anglers would not catch more and bigger fish on the pellethead populated private waters than poor fly anglers would?

I think the differences between the good anglers and the bad would be less distinct.

Quote:

Do you think that such good fly anglers would be out of their league on non-pellethead-stocked waters?

Don't really understand the question. I'm saying all anglers can look good on the pellethead stocked waters, thus making it difficult to tell the good from the bad. Go to non-pellethead-stocked waters, and the differences will become more obvious.

I am not saying that there's no such thing as a good angler on Beaver's waters. I'm sure there's a mix of good and bad anglers the same as anywhere else. However, it's not till you get off of his waters that you can tell the difference. And for the ones who ONLY fish his pellethead stocked waters, they probably are among the bad anglers for several reasons. 1. They've never challenged themselves. You get to be good by fishing difficult waters, and if they never did that, they never gained the knowledge and skills necessary to tackle more difficult circumstances. And 2. Perhaps they pay and routinely fish Beaver's waters because they've failed to succeed elsewhere.

I will not say that all of his club members are among that group. There may be some fine anglers who routinely fish other streams, and are only members of the club for social reasons, to give their kids an easy place to fish, and/or because they bought his environmental marketing.

od, your storyline just presented that little remark as "too easy," I recognized the truth of what you related. As pcray says above, there are good and bad anglers using Donnie's club for refuge from the unwashed. But I would be willing to say that most of them joined because they like to FF, and have probably fished many of the waters you consider so much more difficult. They may very well be much more accomplished than the best among us.

Again, I can find many things to complain about regarding Home Waters, but the skill of their patrons is just a really weak thing to focus on.

Posted on: 2011/1/12 6:42

_________________Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

Guide realizes his sport is a numbskull and will probably get skunked. He calls ahead and has some fresh stockies dumped into the Beat around the bend. Lo and Behold, when they turn the bend and start fishing, the sport begins catching trout on that magic rockworm fly the guide tied on for him as they rounded the bend.

Really, that's how some of these comments sound to me.

Posted on: 2011/1/12 6:47

_________________Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

I'd venture to say that the experience is consistently pretty easy on these waters, but I've said multiple times that focusing on discussing a supposed lack of skill of the patrons is a bad idea IMO. Even if Jack is wrong, and they're all a bunch of hamfisted oafs that couldn't catch a wild bluegill if they tried, it's useless (imo) to rail on the skill level thing.

To the unbiased third party, it really looks like it's just a bunch of jealous whining. To the average person, a fish is a fish. We stand to gain nothing by convincing the world that these guys are poor sportsmen. It's really just a circle jerk, and our time is better spent discussing objective reasons why HWC/SRC is a bad thing.